“Watch what you say, shaman,” one soldier threatened. “We can choose to not let you out.”
I snorted. “No, you can’t, now let us pass.” I pushed passed them before I gave them a chance to speak.
Shva’sika sighed. “Laz’shika, what are we going to do with you?”
Raikidan snickered and followed. The rest soon followed his lead and the soldiers didn’t argue.
Shva’sika led our little group south for several hours until we reached the Forest of Marior. I had been here once, when I had first gone on the run, but hadn’t had the chance to really get a good look at the forest. The Forest of Marior spanned for several miles and was one of the few remaining forests to have held up through the War of End. Because of this, the trees grew to enormous sizes and the animals and other plant life flourished.
“So, do we have a designated location in mind?” Ryoko asked. “Or are we going to wander around in this forest forever?”
Shva’sika giggled. “Well now that we reached the Forest of Marior, we need to find a good clearing to set up camp.”
Ryoko’s cloak snagged on a bush. “Well I hope we find some place soon.”
I stopped walking and scanned the forest. The others also stopped and Rylan opened his mouth to ask, but I held up my hand to keep him quiet. The forest had grown quiet. Not a bird or insect made a sound. Only the rushing of a river couldn’t be controlled into silence. Ryoko and Raikidan tensed when they realized this as well and began scanning the forest. What’s lurking in the shadows?
I turned when the canopy leaves above rustled, and barely managed to dive out of the way of the figure crashing down on me. I scrambled to my feet and Raikidan reacted quickly, taking a protective stance in front of me.
Our attacker kept his distance from us and I did my best not to recoil from his hideous features. Definitely a Hunter.
“Who are you?” Shva’sika demanded. “What do you aim to get from attacking shamans?”
The hunter chuckled. “You are the only real shaman here. I have no quarrel with you.” He looked at me and licked his lips. “I’m just here for my quarry. No disguise will ever hide her delicious perfume.”
He then dashed into the shadows of the forest and disappeared from site. Raikidan flexed his muscles in preparation to pursue but I stopped him. “No, he’s trying to lure you out.”
“I can take him,” Raikidan said.
“Just wait. He’ll be back.”
“Is it just me, or did the hunter look uglier than normal?” Ryoko asked.
“I’m more concerned with his comment about Laz’s scent,” Rylan said.
I hushed them and listened. This Hunter’s looks and comment didn’t matter. His presence here in the first place did. Zarda would know I’m in the city again. He’d have no reason to keep Hunters out here looking for me anymore. So why was this one here?
Scanning for this Hunter proved difficult with my hood up, so I pulled it down. There was no tricking this Hunter, so I found no reason to worry about my identity. When that didn’t improve my odds of locating him I backed up in attempt to lure the Hunter out. He was after me, after all.
Raikidan tried to protest, but I placed a finger to my lips and gave him a stern “trust me” look. He nodded, though he clearly wasn’t happy about it. I continued to back up and look around in hopes to catch even a glimpse of this Hunter, to no avail.
“Got you,” a whisper came from behind me.
I gasped and my eyes widened when an arm reached around my body and pinned my arm, and an ugly, talon-like hand reached up and grabbed my neck and jaw. The others froze in shock of his sudden appearance.
“How?” I asked through gritted teeth.
He chuckled. “I’m a bit different than the other Hunters. A new breed, if you will. We’re able to conceal ourselves much better, but we have one fatal flaw. We hold on tighter to the scents we’re told to follow—too tight in my case. Your scent is so delicious, even after I was ordered to give up on it, I couldn’t.” He inhaled deeply near my neck and grinned. “I couldn’t help but track you down in the city and follow you.”
I tried to struggle out of his grip but his hold was too good.
He chuckled. “You’ll only tire yourself out. My joints lock, allowing me to hold on much better than others. I need this scent of yours. Zarda wants you back, but I’m selfish.”
I struggled more. What a creep!
Raikidan growled and took a sept forward. “Let her go.”
“She’s not yours anymore, Dragon,” the Hunter sneered.
The Hunter tried to force me to back up, but I resisted. No way was this thing taking me anywhere. My resisting worked in my favor as Raikidan took advantage of the small struggle and ripped the Hunter off me. The act scraped the Hunter’s talon-line hands over my cloak, ripping it, and wounding my arm, but I couldn’t have cared less. At least this freak wasn’t touching me anymore.
Raikidan stood between the Hunter and me, his muscles tense with anger. “You’ll pay for touching her like that.”
“It’ll be you who pays, Beast,” The Hunter insulted. “No one gets between me and my quarry.”
The hunter then ran into the forest, but Raikidan wasn’t going to stay put this time. He shrugged his vest off his shoulders and bolted after the Hunter, his body taking on another shape as he did. The rest of us watched as his dragon form thundered into the forest after the elusive Hunter.
“Stupid dragon,” I muttered. “He won’t catch the Hunter like that.” I looked at Ryoko with confusion when she sputtered out a laugh. This really wasn’t the time to find something funny. “What are you laughing at?”
“Raikidan,” she admitted. “Did you not see his face when that hunter grabbed you? He was absolutely livid.”
Shva’sika placed her fingers over her mouth as she tried not to laugh either. “He also didn’t need to take his shirt off. It would have handled his shifting just fine like the rest of his clothes.”
Ryoko continued to giggle. “He was so showing off.”
My cheeks started to burn. “He was not!”
“Oh yes he was,” Ryoko insisted. “And you know it. That’s why you’re getting embarrassed.”
“You really need to get this delusion out of your head,” I said.
Ryoko shook her head. “It’s not a delusion. I know what I saw on Raikidan’s face when that creep tried to claim you. There’s something there.”
I looked at Rylan. “Help me out here!”
He held up his hands. “Look, I’m not getting in the middle of this.”
Before I shoot off a reply, a high-pitched, painful scream echoed through the forest. The scream sent a small chill up my spine. I couldn’t be sure who screamed, but whatever happened to them, had to have been extremely painful. The four of us waited as the forest remained silent.
I sighed with quiet relief when the familiar sound of dragon footsteps echoed through the air. I didn’t care what he had done to the hunter to make him scream like that. I was just glad he wasn’t the one who had been hurt.
Ryoko cheered when Raikidan came into sight and I smiled at him as he lowered his massive head toward me.
“Thank you,” I said as I rested my hand on his snout.
Raikidan shifted. “He won’t bother you again.”
I barely heard him as the blood staining his lips and teeth distracted me. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You look ridiculous with so much blood in your mouth.”
“I want to see your arm first,” he said. “I know you were harmed during that.”
I turned myself so he wouldn’t be able to see through the holes in my cloak and see me clutching my upper arm where I had been gashed. “I’m good, don’t worry.”
He reached for me. “C’mon show me.”
“Raikidan,
seriously, it’s nothing. Just a scratch.”
“I can smell all the blood, it’s not,” he insisted. “Now stop being so stubborn and let me see your arm.”
Ryoko giggled and heading off in a random direction. “We’ll let you two lovebirds figure this out.”
“We’re not lovebirds!” Raikidan and I shouted in unison.
Ryoko snickered as an awkward tension fells between us and led the others away.
“Eira, can I please see your arm?” Raikidan asked after we had been alone for a minute or two.
“Raikidan, it’s seriously not a big deal,” I said.
“I don’t care if it’s only a scratch. I was careless when removing that filthy thing off you and you were harmed in the process. Please let me look at it.”
I sighed and complied. How could I not with that reasoning? He scowled at me when he found out exactly how bad of scratch it was and then proceeded to heal me up. When he was done, he allowed me to dig through my bag to find water and a rag to clean his mouth, and for me to clean my own skin of my blood, and then we headed in the direction of the others before they could get any other funny ideas about us.
I looked around when we came to an open area in the forest. It was big enough to make a camp but had enough tree and brush cover to make it secluded and private. After the run-in with the Hunter, we’d need a place like this. Rylan sat down and sighed. He had finally calmed down when we reached the Forest of Marior, but after the ambush, his anxiety levels rose back to their original level. I couldn’t blame him for being on edge. He’d never been out of the city except for battles while in the military, and during that time we had been forced to wear tracking devices so we wouldn’t be tempted to run off. The Hunter’s attack didn’t help him with separating his past and present. Hopefully he’ll calm down now that we were able to make camp and relax.
I took my bag from Raikidan and rummaged through it. The sooner we set up camp the better. Pulling out the materials need to set up the tent I probably wouldn’t use, I laid them out so it’d be easier to grab what I needed as I worked. Unclasping my cloak, I took it off and, in a matter of seconds, had it folded in my arms and then I worked with the body cloth that matched my mouth veil.
The veil was next and I was forced to fix my hair when it came loose from my hair clip during the process. Ryoko took her cloak off and handed it to me in hopes I’d fold it for her. I laughed, shook my head, and complied.
After I folded it, I took a good look at her outfit. It was cute on her and rather fitting since it was made of wolf hide. The top was a strip of hide that wrapped from her back over her breasts and threaded around a small metal ring that was attached to a multi-layered bone necklace. Clasped to the cloth, holding the two sides together to keep her breasts in place, was a circular pin that was painted to look like the full moon. Her skirt only went down mid-thigh and tied off on one end, exposing a lot of skin on that side from the hip down. On her feet were leather, toeless boots with teeth and claws from various carnivorous animals threaded through them.
I glanced back at Rylan to see his reaction and I wasn’t disappointed. His hood was down, allowing me to his reaction, and he happily, and not so subtly, checked her out.
“So how long am I going to have to wait for you to pitch the tent so I can change out of this stupid thing?” Ryoko complained.
I snorted. “You can go change behind a bush if you’re in that much of a rush.”
Ryoko laughed dryly. “Funny, real funny.”
“It’s not that bad,” I defended. “It’s not like it’s going to kill you.”
Ryoko snorted. “Please. I’m not changing out in the open. I mean not even”—she looked around—”where did Danika go?”
“She mumbled something about changing into clothes that would be better for hiking,” Raikidan replied as he sat under a large oak tree.
Ryoko clasped her hands together. “That sounds like fun!”
“Then go change,” I told her.
She folded her arms. “Not until the tent is up.”
I sighed and gestured to the tent pieces. “Then you put up the tent.”
She grumbled to herself and went to work. I knelt down and rummaged through my bag. Raikidan was going to need to change his clothes and I had no idea where I had put the cloth armor I had stuffed into the bag before I put the jars in.
Shva’sika’s sudden shriek pulled my attention from my bag. She was standing by the tree line staring at me. She looked absolutely horrified.
“What?” I demanded.
She pointed at me. “What did you do to the outfit I made you?”
I blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“You changed the bottoms!” she cried.
I laughed and looked at the skirt I was wearing. It was a thick strip of cloth that wrapped low behind me. The two ends crossed in the front and attached to black bikini bottoms. I would have preferred pants but I knew better to wear this. This skirt allowed more movement where pants didn’t, plus it still had that revealing look to it, making it match up to Shva’sika’s criteria.
“That’s your issue? Of course I changed them. The ones you gave me were repulsive.”
“I second that,” Ryoko piped it, waving her hand.
“That bad?” Rylan asked.
“They were disgusting,” Raikidan stated. I glared at him and he held up his hands defensively. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault you walked out of that room without a cloak on the day we left the village.”
I snorted and went back to rummaging through my bag.
“Okay, not going to ask,” Ryoko said slowly. “But trust us, Rylan, it wasn’t walking-in-public material.”
Rylan nodded, understanding what we were getting at, which was nice. Meant we wouldn’t have to spell it out for him.
Finally finding the armor cloth, I pulled it out of my bag and held it up. “Here, Raikidan, I knew you’d like this more than regular clothes.”
Raikidan got up from where he was sitting and came over to take it. He was out of the clearing before I could blink. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn he didn’t like being in his shaman outfit.
“Hey, um, did either of you pack me something?” Rylan asked.
Ryoko looked up from her work and smiled. “Oh yeah, I forgot I did that for you, sorry.”
He smiled and waited as she rummaged through her bag. Once she had all his clothes in a pile for him, he got up and took them off her hands.
“Wait!” she called to him before he disappeared into the tree line.
“What?” he asked.
“Could you take off your cloak so we can see the style of your clothes?” she asked quietly. “Danika wouldn’t tell us.”
He scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know…”
Ryoko tucked her hair behind her ear and looked away, glancing back at him only briefly. “Okay that’s fine. I don’t want to force you to do something you don’t want to.”
I noticed his gulp as he thought over his options. Ryoko’s coy gestures put him in a situation he wasn’t planning for.
He sighed and took off his cloak. “All right, you can look.”
The two of us looked at him and blinked. His shirt wasn’t much of a shirt. It was more like a long, thick, strip of cloth that wrapped around his torso several times and then over his shoulder. His pants and shoes were exactly like Raikidan’s and his hands were wrapped in cloth until mid forearm. The chains around his wrist were wrapped up tight inside the cloth, preventing anyone who didn’t know him from knowing they were there. Around his right thigh he had a small belt with a few pouches.
Ryoko smiled and went back to working on the tent, tucking her hair behind her ear once more as it broke free from the movement. “You look nice. I don’t see why
you were complaining.”
Rylan stared at her like a deer in headlights. Shva’sika snapped her fingers and he jumped. I bit my lip tried so hard not to laugh.
He turned and made a hasty retreat into the woods but just before he disappeared he spoke. “You shouldn’t complain either, Ryoko. You look very nice.”
Ryoko immediately stopped what she was doing and her face flushed. I couldn’t help but laugh now, and Shva’sika was sure to join in.
“If this was one of those cartoons all of you watch in the morning, I swear his tongue would have been hanging out,” Shva’sika teased.
“Danika!” Ryoko screeched in embarrassment.
“Trust me that was nothing,” I assured Shva’sika. “You should have seen him when she first took off her cloak. I swear he was about to drool everywhere.”
Ryoko’s face reddened more, making us laugh even more. Raikidan stumbled out of the brush, his foot having snagged on a stubborn branch, and he looked at us funny. I waved him off and he understood it would be best not to ask.
He dropped his shaman clothes at my feet and knelt down next to Ryoko to watch her finish setting up the tent. I sighed and folded his clothes. I needed to teach him how to do it himself. I felt like his maid.
Rylan came back finally, with his clothes folded in his hands and handed them to me carefully so they wouldn’t spill everywhere.
“Rylan, you have to be the only guy I know who can actually fold clothes,” I said as I stuffed them into Ryoko’s bag, making his folding efforts pointless. “Unlike a certain dragon.”
Raikidan snorted. “I don’t know how to fold clothes. I don’t even know how my clothes go from that thing you call a hamper to my dresser and smell better in the process.”
Ryoko laughed. “That’s because I do your laundry.”
“You do what now?”
She laughed some more. “I clean your clothes.”
“Oh… well… thanks, I think.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. He’s something else.
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